WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwire - Aug 29, 2012) - Finalists for the 2012 Online Journalism Awards, many pushing the envelope of innovation and excellence in digital storytelling and distribution, were announced today by the Online News Association and its academic partner, the School of Communication at the University of Miami.

A group of 34 industry-leading journalists and new media professionals teamed up to review entrants and select finalists. Twelve of those judges, representing a diverse cross-section of the industry, and 12 more internationally conferred to determine winners from independent, community, nonprofit, major media and international news sites.

The results will be announced at the 2012 ONAConference and Online Journalism Awards Banquet on Saturday, Sept. 22, in San Francisco.

This year, ONA introduced category changes to ensure the awards maintain their innovative front edge by breaking out content by topic; categorizing entries by staff size rather than audience metrics, and assuming the use of the latest digital platforms and technologies. Eight awards come with a total of $33,000 in prize money, courtesy of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Gannett Foundation, which also is supporting innovative investigative work with two $2,500 awards.

"Once again, we were overwhelmed with the quality of work submitted," said ONA Board member Josh Hatch, who, along with the Associated Press' Director of Global Product Operations Ruth Gersh, co-chairs the Online Journalism Awards Committee. "The use of multimedia, the power of data and social media, and the ability of journalists to integrate them to inform, entertain, and emotionally connect with readers has set a high water mark."

Here are the finalists, in alphabetical order:

Knight Award for Public Service

• Abused and Used, The New York Times
• Broken Shield, California Watch and Center for Investigative Reporting
• Empty Cradles, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
• Homicide Watch D.C.
• Stand Your Ground, Tampa Bay Times

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Small

• FRONTLINE
• Homicide Watch D.C.
• St. Louis Beacon
• The Texas Tribune

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Medium

• California Watch
• ProPublica
• Slate Magazine
• WNYC

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Large

• CNN Digital
• NYTimes.com
• The Seattle Times
• WSJ.com

General Excellence, Non-English, Small/Medium

• 20minutos.es (Spain)
• Il Tirreno (Italy)
• Rue89 (France)

Gannett Foundation Award for Technical Innovation in the Service of Digital Journalism

• CartoDB
• NewsCred
• Open Source Election Tools, Los Angeles Times
• Storify

Breaking News, Medium

• Hurricane Irene Threatens New York City, WNYC
• Occupy Nashville, The Tennessean
• University of Alberta Shooting, Edmonton Journal

Breaking News, Large

• The Death of Muammar Gaddafi, Al Jazeera English
• The Fall of Tripoli, The Associated Press
• Hurricane Irene, The New York Times
• Occupy L.A., Los Angeles Times

Planned News/Events, Small

• Congressional Primaries 2012, Knight News Innovation Laboratory, Northwestern University
• Primary Night 2012, The Texas Tribune
• Supreme Court and Health Care Reform, WebMD

Planned News/Events, Medium

• 12:51, Stuff.co.nz and The Press
• Oscars Coverage, Slate Magazine

Planned News/Events, Large

• Judging The Health Care Law, NPR
• The L.A. Riots, 20 Years Later, Los Angeles Times
• The Reckoning - America and the World a Decade After 9/11, The New York Times
• Tenth Anniversary of 9/11 Attacks, Newsday.com

Explanatory Reporting, Small

• Andrew Leonard: The Student Loan Crisis, Salon
• Class: The Great Divide, St. Louis Beacon
• EarthFix, Oregon Public Broadcasting
• The Farmer of the Future, Harvest Public Media
• Putting Detroit's Problems in Regional and Historical Context, Remapping Debate

Explanatory Reporting, Medium

• College Completion: Who Graduates from College, Who Doesn't, and Why It Matters, The Chronicle of Higher Education
• The Opportunity Gap: Is Your State Providing Equal Access to Education?, ProPublica
• Our Time to Lead: Immigration, globeandmail.com

Explanatory Reporting, Large

• Connecting Music and Gesture, NYTimes.com
• Gay Rights, State by State (and Beyond), The Guardian
• A Record Chain of Kidney Transplants, NYTimes.com
• Somalia: Where Famine Is a Crime, The Toronto Star
• StateImpact, NPR and Public Media Stations in Eight States

Topical Reporting, Small

• Counterspill
• EarthFix, Oregon Public Broadcasting
• Nieman Journalism Lab

Topical Reporting, Medium

• California Lost, California Watch
• Continuing Coverage: NYPD Stop and Frisk, WNYC
• Education Coverage and the Turnaround, Las Vegas Sun

Topical Reporting, Large

• CNN Belief Blog, CNN
• FiveThirtyEight - Nate Silver's Political Calculus, The New York Times
• Middle East Voices, Voice of America
• Philly School Files, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Online Commentary, Small

• Bear 71, National Film Board of Canada
• Mary Elizabeth Williams, Lab Rat, Salon
• Minorities Within a Minority Culture, The Mary Sue

Online Commentary, Medium

• Kevin Drum Blog, Mother Jones
• Mad Men Coverage, Slate Magazine
• Nahlah Ayed: The Everyday Brutality That Is Assad's Syria, CBC News
• Slate Political Gabfest, Slate Magazine

Online Commentary, Large

• Death and Dying - Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times
• Grantland.com - Bill Simmons, ESPN
• Lyndsey Parker Yahoo! Music, Yahoo!
• The Seattle Times Editorial Section, The Seattle Times

Feature, Small

• Bear 71, National Film Board of Canada
• The Canoe Project, WLRN-Miami Herald News & Under the Sun on WLRN
• Coal: A Love Story, Powering a Nation
• Twitter by Post, The Morning News

Feature, Medium

• Aftermath Special Presentation, ABC Open
• Breaking Caste, globeandmail.com
• The Education of Dasmine Cathey, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Feature, Large

• Following the Dreamers: What Happened to the Seat Pleasant 59?, The Washington Post
• Mauritania, CNN
• Outside the Lines: A Man Obsessed, ESPN
• Punched Out - The Life and Death of a Hockey Enforcer, NYT.com
• Under Suspicion: Voices About Muslims in America, The Washington Post

Feature, Student

• Finding the Uwharries, Carolina Photojournalism Workshop, University of North Carolina
• Slab City Stories, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
• Visualizing Florida, University of Miami Graduate Program in Multimedia Journalism

Gannett Foundation Award for Innovative Investigative Journalism, Small

• No Choice: Florida Charter Schools Failing to Serve Students with Disabilities, WLRN-Miami Herald News & StateImpact for NPR

Gannett Foundation Award for Innovative Investigative Journalism, Medium

• Broken Shield, California Watch
• Decoding Prime, California Watch
• Redistricting: How Powerful Interests Are Drawing You Out of a Vote, ProPublica
• Terrorists for the FBI, Mother Jones

Gannett Foundation Award for Innovative Investigative Journalism, Large

• The Fed's Trillion-Dollar Secret, Bloomberg News
• Methadone and the Politics of Pain, The Seattle Times
• Stand Your Ground, Tampa Bay Times

Non-English Projects, Small/Medium

• Mexodus, Borderzine.com (Mexico / U.S.)
• To Understand the Crisis, 20minutos.es (Spain)
• Whisper Jokes in the GDR - Protest Off the Record, Berliner Morgenpost (Germany)

Non-English Projects, Large

• The Cords That Bind Us, El Tiempo (Colombia)
• First Anniversary of Japan Earthquake, Universo Online (Brazil)
• Portraits of Paraná, Gazeta do Povo (Brazil)

News and Online Commentary, Student

• The Red Line Project - NATO Coverage, The Red Line Project, DePaul University
• USC Shootings, Neon Tommy

The judges of this year's awards were:

• Rich Beckman, Knight Chair in Visual Journalism, University of Miami
• Heather Billings, News Applications Developer, Chicago Tribune
• Paul Bucci, Director, Digital Products, Pacific News Group
• Neil Budde, CEO, Philadelphia Public Interest Information Network
• Jeanne Carstensen, former Executive Managing Editor, The Bay Citizen
• Ron Coddington, AME Visuals, Chronicle of Higher Education
• Anil Dash, Founder, ThinkUp and Activate
• Kat Downs, Interactive Projects Editor, Washington Post
• Kathleen Ehrlich, Director of Digital Content, New York Public Radio
• Alex Howard, Technology Writer and Editor, O'Reilly Radar
• Elise Hu, Digital Editorial Coordinator, NPR
• Rich Jaroslovsky, Technology Columnist, Bloomberg News; ONA founding president
• Mark Katches, Editorial Director, Center for Investigative Reporting
• Scott Klein, Editor of News Applications, ProPublica; Co-Founder of DocumentCloud
• Colin Mulvany, Photojournalist and Multimedia Producer, The Spokesman-Review
• Tasneem Raja, Digital Interactive Editor, Mother Jones
• Ju-Don Roberts, General Manager and Senior Vice President, Everyday Health
• Zach Seward, Senior Editor, Quartz
• Will Sullivan, Mobile Product Manager, Broadcasting Board of Governors
• Ryan Thornburg, Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina
• Matt Waite, Professor, University of Nebraska
• Ben Welsh, Database Producer, L.A. Times
• Dave Wright, Digital Design Director, NPR
• Chrys Wu, User Engagement Strategist, MatchstrikeLLC

Non-English Awards:

• Rosental Alves, Director, Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, University of Texas, Austin
• Paul Brannan, Independent Digital News Consultant, London
• Arianna Ciccone, International Journalism Festival, Perugia, Italy
• Wang Feng, Online Editor, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong
• Katie King, Senior Product Manager, MSN UK, London; ONA board member
• Tetyana Lokot, Head of New Media Sequence, Mohyla School of Journalism, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine
• Dorothy Parvaz, Online Journalist, Al Jazeera English, Doha, Qatar
• Angela Pimenta, PATRI Políticas Públicas, São Paulo
• Eric Scherer, Director of Future Media, France Televisions, Paris
• Mario Tedeschini-Lalli, Deputy Director Innovation and Development, Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso, Rome; ONA board member
• Nick Wrenn, Vice President of Digital Services, CNNInternational, Atlanta
• Jose Zamora, Univision News, Miami

Judges were recused from discussing categories in which their own organizations were entered.

The judges did not name finalists in the Breaking News, Small and Explanatory Reporting, Student categories.

ONA did not receive enough entries to judge the General Excellence, Non-English, Large category. Those entrants have been notified and refunded. In addition, three student categories were combined to make up the News and Online Commentary, Student category. Those entrants have been notified.

Launched in 2000, the OJAs are the only comprehensive set of journalism prizes honoring excellence in digital journalism. OJA judging is accomplished in partnership with the University of Miami's School of Communication.

About ONA
The Online News Association is the world's largest association of online journalists. ONA's mission is to inspire innovation and excellence among journalists to better serve the public. The membership includes news writers, producers, designers, editors, bloggers, technologists, photographers, academics, students and others who produce and distribute news for digital delivery systems. ONA also hosts the annual Online News Association annual conference and administers the Online Journalism Awards.

About the University of Miami School of Communication
The University of Miami School of Communication prepares analytical and responsible communication professionals for success in a global society. The School offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in journalism, broadcasting, advertising, public relations, visual journalism, communication studies and motion pictures. The School's state of the art, all-digital facilities and resources are among the most advanced in the country. Approximately 1,500 students are enrolled.

About Knight Foundation
Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. We believe that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.

About the Gannett Foundation
The Gannett Foundation is a corporate foundation sponsored by Gannett Co., Inc. whose mission is to invest in the future of the communities in which Gannett does business, and in the future of our industry. It supports projects that take a creative approach to fundamental issues such as education and neighborhood improvement, economic development, youth development, community problem-solving, assistance to disadvantaged people, environmental conservation and cultural enrichment.

The Online News Association is the world's largest association of digital journalists. ONA's mission is to inspire innovation and excellence among journalists to better serve the public. The membership includes news writers, producers, designers, editors, bloggers, developers, photographers, educators, students and others who produce news for and support digital delivery systems. ONA also hosts the annual Online News Association conference and administers the Online Journalism Awards.